The Goddess and the Church

Russ Wise

The goddess, or Great Mother, has existed since the
beginning of time...it is out of the primordial depths of her womb
that the Universe and all life is born. Morwyn, Secrets
Of A Witch's Coven

Reverence for the goddess is becoming more prevalent in our day.
The goddess is embraced by witchcraft, feminism, the occult, and
the liberal church. The New Age that is about to dawn upon us will
be, according to the occult world, a feminine age. Likewise, those
who hold this view believe that this current, masculine age has
been an age of destruction and broken relationships among humanity.
The New Age with its feminine energies will bring balance to the
destructive aspects of the Piscean Age.

Rosemary Radford Ruether in her book, Womanguides: Readings
Toward A Feminist Theology, states "It is to the women that we
look for salvation in the healing and restorative waters of
Aquarius. It is to such a New Age that we look now with hope as the
present age of masculism succeeds in destroying itself." According
to Starhawk, a feminist and practicing witch, "the symbolism of the
Goddess is not a parallel structure to the symbolism of God the
Father. The Goddess does not rule the world; She is the
world."(1)

In order for this feminine age to come into full fruition a shift
in consciousness must take place in the world. This shift in
thinking and perception of reality will bring forth the goddess.(2)

As interest in the occult continues to rise and gain popularity in
our culture, the goddess becomes more popular as a deity. The
modern woman is at a crossroads in her spiritual quest. It is
imperative that she realize her inherent deity, her god nature, for
she is to be the salvation of humanity.

According to those who hold a belief in the Great Goddess, Europe
was once ruled by a matriarchal egalitarian religion. Their belief
dictates that Old Europe was a culture that worshiped a matrifocal
(mother-focused), sedentary, peaceful, art-loving, goddess between
5,000 and 25,000 years before the rise of the first male-oriented
religion. They maintain that this egalitarian culture was overrun
and destroyed by a semi-nomadic, horse-riding, Indo-European group
of invaders who were patrifocal (father-focused), mobile, warlike,
and indifferent to art.(3) The ease with which the peaceful goddess
worshipers were subdued confirmed to the war-like Indo-European
invaders their feelings of natural superiority. The matriarchal
religion of these early settlers was eventually assimilated into
the more dominant patriarchal religion of the invaders. As these
invaders imposed their patriarchal culture on the conquered
peoples, rapes(4) and myths about male warriors killing serpents
appeared for the first time in their history. The serpent was a
symbol of the goddess worshipers. As the assimilation of cultures
continued, the Great Mother Goddess became fragmented into many
lesser goddesses.

According to Merlin Stone, author of When God Was a Woman,
the disenthronement of the Great Goddess, begun by the Indo-
European invaders, was finally accomplished by the Hebrew,
Christian, and Moslem religions that arose later.(5) The male deity
took the prominent place. The female goddesses faded into the
background, and women in society followed suit.(6)

The Goddess and Witchcraft

In the world of witchcraft the goddess is the giver of life. Jean
Shinoda Bolen, M.D., in her book, Goddesses In Everywoman,
has this to say about the goddess:

The Great Goddess was worshiped as the feminine life force deeply
connected to nature and fertility, responsible both for creating
life and for destroying life.(7)

She also proclaims, "The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal,
changeless, and omnipotent" prior to the coming of Christianity.
For witchcraft, the goddess is the earth itself. Mother Earth or
Gaia, as the goddess is known in occult circles, is an evolving
being as is all of nature. In the New Age world view,
environmentalism and the ecological movement play an important part
in restoring the goddess. In her best-selling book, The Spiral
Dance, Starhawk says

The model of the Goddess, who is immanent in nature,
fosters respect for the sacredness of all living things. Witchcraft
can be seen as a religion of ecology. Its goal is harmony with
nature, so that life may not just survive, but thrive.(8)

Witches think of Gaia, or Mother Earth, as a biosystem. They
attribute consciousness to earth and believe it to be spiritual as
well. In other words, Gaia is a living and evolving being that has
a spiritual destiny. Those who practice witchcraft take
responsibility for Mother Earth's evolutionary development.

The environmental movement of our day is greatly influenced by
those who practice witchcraft or hold neopagan beliefs. Witchcraft
is an attempt to reintroduce the sacred aspect of the earth that
was, according to their belief, destroyed by the Christian world.
The goddess is, therefore, a direct affront against the male-
dominated religion of the Hebrew God.

Christianity taught that God was transcendent, apart from nature,
and was a masculine deity. Witchcraft holds a pantheistic view of
God. God is nature. Therefore, God is in all things and all things
are a part of God. However, this God is in actuality a goddess and
predates the male God. The goddess is the giver of all life and is
found in all of creation.

The importance of the Goddess symbol for women cannot
be over stressed. The image of the Goddess inspires women to see
ourselves as divine, our bodies as sacred, the changing phases of
our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy, and our anger as
purifying. Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength,
enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions.(9)

For Betty Sue Flowers, a University of Texas English professor, the
women's spirituality movement is the answer to the male-oriented
religion of Christianity. She was a keynote speaker for the
International Conference on Women's Spirituality in Austin, Texas,
and addressed the conference on the return of the goddess.
According to Flowers,

The goddess is a metaphor that reminds us of the female
side of spirituality. Metaphors are important. You can't know God
directly. You can only know images of God, and each image or
metaphor is a door. Some doors are open and others are closed. A
door that is only male is only half open.(10)

The Goddess and Feminism

For many in the feminist world, the goddess is an expression of
worship. A growing number within the feminist movement have bought
into witchcraft as the central focus of their allegiance. Those who
have become a part of the women's spirituality movement reject what
they call the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition, deploring
sexist language, predominantly masculine imagery and largely male
leadership.(11)

In a Wall Street Journal article, Sonia L. Nazario stated, "Women
first wanted to apply feminism to political and economic realms,
then to their families. Now, they want it in their spiritual
lives."(12)

To fully understand the implications of the women's spirituality
movement one only needs to read the current literature on the
subject. The editors of the book Radical Feminism state that
"Political institutions such as religion, because they are based on
philosophies of hierarchical orders and reinforce male oppression
of females, must be destroyed."

Radical feminists believe that the traditional church must be
dismantled. For example, in her book Changing of the Gods:
Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions, Naomi Goldenburg
announced,

The feminist movement in Western culture is engaged in
the slow execution of Christ and Yahweh....It is likely that as we
watch Christ and Yahweh tumble to the ground, we will completely
outgrow the need for an external God.(13)

Many feminists are obviously moving away from an understanding of
deity as an external "male" God who stands apart from Creation to
a conception of deity as a goddess that is realized within one's
inner self and is one with nature.

Some extreme feminists in the goddess movement "pray for the time
when science will make men unnecessary for procreation."(14) The
radical feminist see the goddess movement as a spiritual outlet for
their long-held beliefs. According to Mark Muesse, an assistant
professor of religious studies at Rhodes College,

some feminist Christians push for changes ranging from
the ordination of women and the generic, non-sexual terms for God
and humanity to overhauling the very theology.(15)

Perhaps the most descriptive word for the feminist movement is
"transformation." Catherine Keller, Associate Professor of Theology
at Xavier University, in her essay "Feminism and the New Paradigm,"
proclaims that the world-wide feminist movement is bringing about
the end of patriarchy, the eclipse of the politics of separation,
and the beginning of a new era modeled on the dynamic, holistic
paradigm. Radical feminism envisions that era, and the long process
leading toward it, as a comprehensive transformation.

Another aspect of this transformation is the blending of the sexes.
The feminist movement seeks a common mold for all of humanity.
Jungian Psychotherapist John Weir Perry believes that we must find
our individuality by discovering androgyny. He states,

To reach a new consensus, we have to avoid falling back
into stereotypes, and that requires truly developing our
individuality. It is an ongoing work of self-realization and self-
actualization. For men it means growing into their native maleness
and balancing it with their femaleness. For women, it's the same
growing into their full womanhood, and that includes their
masculine side.(16)

This process sounds more like androgyny (or sameness) than
individuality and it reflects a paradigm-shift involving nothing
less than the reordering of man's understanding of God. A shift
from thinking of God as male to seeing and experiencing God as a
goddess: the Mother of Life.

The Goddess and the Occult

In the world of the occult, popularly known as the New Age, the
goddess is believed to be resident within the individual and simply
needs to be awakened. In other words, the individual is inherently
divine. Starhawk, a witch who works with the Catholic priest
Matthew Fox at his Institute of Creation Spirituality, says that an
individual can awaken the goddess by invoking, or inviting, her
presence. Starhawk tells us,

To invoke the Goddess is to awaken the Goddess within,
to become ...that aspect we invoke. An invocation channels power
through a visualized image of Divinity....We are already one with
the Goddess--she has been with us from the beginning, so
fulfillment becomes...a matter of self-awareness. For women, the
Goddess is the symbol of the inmost self. She awakens the mind and
spirit and emotions.(17)

Jean Shinoda Bolen, a Jungian analyst and Clinical Professor of
Psychiatry at the University of California, when asked the
question, What ails our society?, put it this way: "We suffer from
the absence of one half of our spiritual potential--the
Goddess."(18) Individuals who follow New Age teaching believe that
the male-dominated religion of this present age has been an
injustice to humanity and the ecosystem. Therefore, there must be
a balancing of energies. The male energies must diminish and the
feminine energies must increase in order for the goddess to empower
the individual.

The New Age of occultism promises to be an age of peace, harmony,
and tranquility. Whereas the present dark age of brokenness and
separation continues to bring war, conflict, and disharmony, so it
is the goddess with her feminine aspects of unity, love, and peace
that will offer a solution for mankind and circumvent his
destruction. For many in our society this appears to be the answer
to man's dilemma. However, an occult solution that denies Christ's
atonement for sin cannot fully meet a holy God's requirement for
wholeness.

For the pagan, the goddess represents life and all it has to offer.
"The Goddess religion is a conscious attempt to reshape
culture."(19) This reshaping is nothing less than viewing man and
his understanding of reality from a female-centered perspective
which focuses on the Divine as being female. Therefore,
considerable emphasis is placed initially on feminine attributes,
but ultimately the focus is on eroticism and sexuality.

Women are clearly the catalyst for the formation of the
new spirituality. It is women above all who are in the process of
reversing Genesis...by validating and freeing their sexuality.(20)

A major part of this transformative process is the empowerment of
women. The rise of the goddess is a direct assault on the
patriarchal foundation of Christianity. This new feminist
spirituality affirms bisexuality, lesbianism, homosexuality, and
androgyny (through the expression of transvestitism).

As this revival of the goddess continues, a growing lack of
distinction between male and female will become the norm. Jungian
Psychotherapist John Weir Perry maintains,

Both current psychology and ancient history point to an
emerging transformation in our sense of both society and self, a
transformation that includes redefining the notion of what it means
to be men and women.(21)

The Bible clearly indicates that men and women were created as
distinctive beings, male and female. This rising occult influence
in our society seeks to undermine the Biblical absolute that gives
our culture stability. Once again the Bible rings true as it
states,

For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have
itching ears, they will heap up teachers; and they will turn their
ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables (2 Tim.
4:3).

The Goddess and the Liberal Church

The message of the goddess has gained a hearing in the church as
well. The philosophy of the goddess is currently being taught in
the classrooms of some of our seminaries. In a growing number of
seminaries the student population is becoming increasingly female,
and many of these women have a feminist outlook on life. Mary Daly,
who considers herself to be a Christian feminist, says this about
traditional Christianity: "To put it bluntly, I propose that
Christianity itself should be castrated."(22) The primary focus of
the "Christian" feminist is to bring an end to what they perceive
as male-dominated religion by "castrating" the male influence from
religion. Daly continued by saying,

I am suggesting that the idea of salvation uniquely by
a male savior perpetuates the problem of patriarchal
oppression.(23)

Reverend Susan Cady, co-author of Sophia: The Future of Feminist
Spirituality and pastor of Emmanuel United Methodist Church in
Philadelphia, is one example of the direction that Daly and others
are taking the church. The authors of Sophia state that, "Sophia is
a female, goddess-like figure appearing clearly in the Scriptures
of the Hebrew tradition."

Wisdom Feast, the authors' latest book, clearly identifies
Jesus with Sophia. Sophialogy presents Sophia as a separate goddess
and Jesus as her prophet. The book takes liberty with Jesus by
replacing the masculine deity with the feminine deity Sophia.
Another example of how goddess "thealogy" (note feminist spelling
for theology) is making its way into the liberal church is through
seminars held on seminary campuses.

One such seminar was held at the Perkins School of Theology at
Southern Methodist University. "Wisdomweaving: Woman Embodied in
Faiths" was held at the school in February of 1990. If one looks at
the schedule of the seminar, it is obvious that the emphasis was
not on orthodoxy. Linda Finnell, a follower of Wicca and one of the
speakers, spoke on the subject of "Returning to the Goddess Through
Dianic Witchcraft." Two of the keynote speakers were of a New Age
persuasion. In fact, one, Sr. Jose Hobday, works with Matthew Fox
and Starhawk at the Institute for Creation Spirituality.

A growing number of churches in the United States and around the
world are embracing the New Age lie. Many churches have introduced
A Course in Miracles, Yoga, Silva Mind Control, Unity
teachings, and metaphysics into their teaching material. Some
churches have taken a further step into the New Age by hiring onto
their staffs individuals who hold to a metaphysical world view.

Along with the deception that is subtly gaining influence in the
liberal church, there are a growing number of churches affiliated
with the New Age. These churches, without apology, teach the
Luciferian gospel. They are the seed-bed of the occult.

It is amazing that while the liberal church will not accept or
believe in Satan, they are willing to embrace Lucifer as an angel
of light. It is interesting to note that the New Age Church
represents itself as the Church of Light.

Whether the individual seeks the goddess through witchcraft, the
feminist movement, the New Age, or the liberal church, he or she is
beginning a quest to understand and discover the "higher self." The
higher self, often referred to as the "god self," is believed to be
pure truth, deep wisdom. In actuality, this so-called "truth" or
"wisdom" embodies the oldest lie in the Book, the lie of self-
deification: "Ye shall become as Gods." As Christians we must learn
to discern every spirit lest we too become deceived.